Jitbit Software Blog

Calling ASP.NET Web Services from jQuery

2009-07-07T05:32:00.000-07:00

Another post for ASP.NET developers reading this blog (if any).

I prefer compiling our web-projects to ASP.NET 2.0 rather than 3.5 basically because of all that stuff Visual Studio adds to the "Web.config" file. And the "Web.config" is often edited by our end-users, who might find it confusing to make their way through all these "configSections", "assemblies" and "httpHandlers" that look quite scary.

With the latest project we're working on (a CRM and contact management application) we decided to finally benefit from the MS AJAX framework that is built in to the .NET Framework 3.5.

But to optimize our code and keep it lightweight and fast, we've decided to use jQuery where possible, avoiding the bulky and clumsy MS AJAX's javascript.

So - how do you use jQuery to call a JSON ASP.NET web-service? Here it is. The code is self-explaining:

WebService code:


[WebService(Namespace = "http://mynamespace.org/")]
//the next line is important
[System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptService]
public class MyWebService : System.Web.Services.WebService
{
    [WebMethod]
    public string HelloWorld(int a, string b)
    {
        return "Hello World";
    }
}

Now the client-side code. Note the JSON-serialized parameters passed with the "data" property:


$.ajax({
    type: "POST",
    url: "MyWebService.asmx/HelloWorld",
    data: '{a:1,b:"test"}',
    contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
    dataType: "json",
    success: function(msg) {
        alert(msg.d);
    }
});

Sharing interesting posts from Google Reader on Twitter

2009-06-29T02:12:00.000-07:00

Jitbit has a Twitter account for quite some time now, where I post my own twits along with the company official news, releases and blog announcements.

All the official stuff is published via Twitterfeed, a great service that automatically twits your RSS-entries to your Twitter account. We have a news feed, a blog and a release-log feed, and all of them are automatically published to Twitter whenever a new item appears. So if you have a blog or a newsfeed - Twitterfeed is a must-have tool for you.

Now, I've recently thought of an efficient way to "retwit" (share on Twitter) the interesting links I stumble on in my Google Reader. Usually, once you've found a great article to share you have to (1) click the article in Reader, (2) copy the link and (3) paste that link into your twitter along with the article title... But the best way would be to use the Google Reader's built-in "Shared items" feed.

As you might know, Google Reader offers public access to all your shared items. What is great is that these shared items are also available as an RSS-feed! So all you have to do is to simply "feed" that feed to Twitterfeed and that's it:

Why should I buy from a small software company?

2009-06-09T10:16:00.000-07:00

Imagine you've found an error in a product from some huge international software corporation, let's call it "MacroHard". I bet it has already happened to you a couple of times. Imagine you contact "MacroHard" to let them know about the error. Now think of the chances that this error would actually be fixed in a reasonable amount of time. The probability is close to zero, huh? Also think of the chances that MacroHard will contact you personally when it's fixed...

I'm not even mentioning feature-requests (instead of errors). You must have already guessed - forget about 'em.

Along with the company size, and brand recognition, and other "big" stuff you get when you buy from a massive corporation, you should always ask yourself - "how can I affect the product development or at least the error correction in it?"

Here's an example from earlier this week:

>>>

Wednesday (9:30 AM EST) — Customer:

"Hi there. I've downloaded the latest version of RSS Feed Creator, nice tool. But I need a feature that seems to be missing - or I was just too dumb to find it."

Wednesday (9:35 AM EST) — Alex (Jitbit):

"Hi. Thank you for the email. Can you specify what feature you miss exactly?"

Wednesday (10:30 AM EST) — Customer:

"Hi Alex. Thanks for the quick response. I want to remove the old outdated items from the feed, but the tool doesn't allow removing more than one item at a time."

Wednesday (12:45 PM EST) — Alex (Jitbit):

"Hi. Looked into this and it seems to be an easy task, we're adding this to our next version that will be out within 24 hours, please stay updated to our version-history RSS feed".

Thursday (10:30 AM EST) — Customer:

"Hello. We've downloaded the latest version, all OK. I think we'll be ordering some licenses later on today."

Thursday (02:09 PM EST):

"New Order for 2 licenses of Jitbit RSS Feed Creator"

<<<

Let's see a massive international software corporation do that.

I'm just a biker

2009-05-14T04:24:00.000-07:00

This is totally "off-topic" for this blog, but please find 90 seconds of your time to watch these two videos. And please take longer to look for us, bikers, on the road.

Tech support bits #2: saying "No" to your customer

2009-05-07T07:44:00.000-07:00

Continuing the "tech support thoughts": Don't be afraid to say "no" to a customer.

A software developer gets a question if his product has a "feature", that he knows is absent. "How can I answer 'no' to my customer?" - he thinks - "Maybe I should add this 'feature' to my next version? But I have no time to do this right now, so I'll leave this for the weekend..." Sounds familiar? A day passes, a week, and the developer still has no time to implement the new feature. The customer question remains unanswered. And it's getting more and more awkward each day, pushing this question from being answered even more.

Learn to say "No". Don't be afraid to.

"No, but we'll consider adding it". "No, and I'm afraid it never will have it". It's better than no answer at all.

PS. Inspired by a question from our customer: "can your helpdesk software do billing for our technicians?"

Dream home-office

2009-04-18T03:26:00.000-07:00

I always considered myself a pro in setting up a home office, but this guy is incredible

More pictures here.

Google launches "Google Ventures"

2009-04-04T07:41:00.000-07:00

Google has launched Google Ventures - a fund that "seeks to discover and grow great companies".

ASP.NET: mixing OutputCache with Server.Transfer

2009-03-26T01:14:00.000-07:00

If there's any ASP.NET developers reading this blog, here's a small tip for you guys.

If you want to optimize your page performance by using the "@OutputCache" directive you might notice that the caching does not work when you perform a "Server.Transfer" operation to that "cached" page.

It's a really long story why this happens... But to work that out just replace the "Server.Transfer" calls with the "Server.Execute" calls. Important: remember to pass the "Response.Output" to this method (NOT some custom text-writer, exactly "Response.Output"):


//this does not work
Server.Transfer("MyCachedPage.aspx");

//this works. Note the "Response.Output"
Server.Execute("MyCachedPage.aspx", Response.Output);

Bring Down IE6

2009-03-22T13:14:00.000-07:00

A campaign by Brirish ".NET magazine": bring down IE6. "IE6 is the next Netscape 4" - so true.

Jitbit Helpdesk - hosted version

2009-03-06T00:33:00.001-08:00

We are happy to announce the beta launch of the hosted version of our Helpdesk Software. We will take care of the installation, hosting and maintenance of your helpdesk for under $30 a month.

The hosted helpdesk will, of course, stay completely free during the beta stage. All beta-testers are eligible for a free 6-month run after the final release. Please apply for a beta test using the links above.

Slumdog Millionaire

2009-02-27T05:19:00.000-08:00

Went to see Danny Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire" while I was in London. Here' my two cents: not bad. Really not bad. A must see.

Danny's techniques to move a spectator to tears are trite and transparent at a first glance. IF it was fiction. It is not. That's actually the way things were/are in Mumbai, as far as I know (we cooperate with some outsourcing partners in India).

I personally always liked Danny Boyle for "Trainspotting", "The Beach" and "28 days later" (one of the best horror movies I've seen), and I was so afraid to be kinda "biased", that I kept searching for the reasons, what's bad in "Slumdog"... Until I relaxed and realized that the movie is actually quite good.

Two questions bother me though: first - would it earn a 2009-best-picture if it was an Indian movie by Indian director/producers? And second - why all the "bad guys" are hindu, and all the "good guys" are muslims?

ACH payments

2009-02-14T01:06:00.001-08:00

Just a quick note to let our customers know that our e-commerce provider, Plimus, has added the ACH (also known as "e-checks") payment method, so now Jitbit Software accepts ACH for US-based customers.

Web 2.0 thoughts and Privacy Policy Generator

2009-02-13T01:30:00.000-08:00

In my humble opinion, "Web 2.0" is not about "let's transform all software into web-services". After all, this is true for so called "data-oriented" software only -- like text-editors, personal finance apps, email tools, maybe even graphical editors some day. But you will always need an operating system, a browser, finally, a network driver to get to the net (and who knows, may be a network switcher also).

Speaking of online services. I have a friend who also runs a mISV. I personally disagree with what he has done, but he has restricted the Internet access for his developers' computers. Still there's a couple of 'public' computers in every room which are connected to the Internet, and anybody can use it anytime to find some helpful answers, surf the Web or even relax and play some online games or read funny blogs. But no Internet at your workplace. It's like having a recreation room with a PlayStation in it... So, my friend claims that the devs productivity got high as never before. Without the Internet.

So, back to "Web 2.0". I guess "Web 2.0" is not about "lets move everything to the Web". It is about online presence. It's about - stop saying "visit www.thing.com for more" at the end of your commercial, and start saying "enter 'thing' in Google for more" instead! It's when creating your company account at Twitter, Squidoo and LinkedIn is as important, if not more important, than registering an Internet domain name.

BTW, found a nice online Privacy Policy Generator, you might find it useful: http://www.dmaresponsibility.org/PPG/.

UPDATE:
Speaking of "what is Web 2.0", here's a nice video:

Twittering from Skype easily

2009-02-09T00:52:00.000-08:00

For those of you who wants to improve their online presence - here's a simple way to send Twitter-updates right from your Skype account:

1. Add twitter4skype to your contact list.

2. Send this text to him:
#account
yourTwitterUserName
yourTwitterPassword

3. You will get a "twitter4skype Registration complete" message

That's it! Now all messages sent to twitter4skype are posted directly to your Twitter page. Moreover - updates from your Twitter-friends are being sent right to your Skype chat window (can be turned off anytime).

P.S. Send "#help" to twitter4skype anytime to get short help.

Google AJAX API Playground

2009-02-06T01:06:00.000-08:00

While we're considering using Google Charts in our Help-Desk ticketing software, Google has published Google AJAX API Playground. It is a place with more than 170 examples of using eight Google Services (Maps, Earth, Charts etc.) through their APIs. ~~Worth a look.~~ Must see!

BoS 2009

2009-02-05T05:26:00.000-08:00

Neil Davidson of Red Gate Software has posted a beautiful, emotional and inspiring video about the Business of Software conference he runs every year.

Thanks, Neil, for what you're doing. I wish I could join you all guys at the conference this year (damn I hate to be overseas).

Google imagesize

2009-01-16T04:42:00.000-08:00

Did you know that you can google for images of specific size?

imagesize:256x256 filetype:png firefox

imagesize:289x100 jitbit

MacBook spoof

2009-01-12T03:32:00.000-08:00

New Apple laptop with no keyboard

Lazy SEO (tm)

2008-12-31T08:35:00.000-08:00

Here's a nice tip for mISV's who want to increase their search engine traffic in minutes.

One of the monthly tasks performed regularly at Jitbit is what I call "Lazy SEO".

"Lazy SEO" is checking Google Analytics for the keywords that already bring you some visitors from search engines, and optimizing the website for these keywords. If your website is already well-ranked by some keyword, why not enhance this ranking even more?

Example: to promote our Jitbit Helpdesk product, we initially tried to optimize the page for the "helpdesk software" query. Which is almost impossible, since the competition is huge here. But there are a couple of less frequent queries like "asp.net ticket system" or "sql helpdesk" that already bring some traffic. And adding a couple of sentences to the product description and creating a couple of links with the desired anchors does its job: the traffic stream slightly increases.

Photoshop

2008-12-10T03:52:00.001-08:00

Christmas Sale 2008

2008-12-09T04:27:00.000-08:00

We are happy to announce the launch of our XMAS Sale 2008 campaign. Get a discount.

VS 2008 "A required privilege is not held by the client"

2008-12-02T23:00:00.000-08:00

A small tip for web developers.

If your ASP.NET application uses impersonation and explicitly sets up a user account in the "web.config" - you wont be able to debug this app in Visual Studio 2008 under Vista. You will get the "a required privilege is not held by the client" error message.

Solution: run VS2008 "as administrator".

Tech-support bits #1

2008-11-07T07:14:00.000-08:00

If you ask several questions in your reply to a customer, he will answer only one. The last one, or the first one.

The more questions you ask, the less info you get. Be short.

In-joke for programmers

2008-11-07T02:16:00.000-08:00

A hacker gets a call from a city council:
-Are you sure you want to name your child - John';DROP DATABASE ?

Google Browser

2008-09-01T23:28:00.000-07:00

Google is releasing a browser - Google Chrome - with plans to make it open-source. More here.